This 72 year old grandmother was eager to learn about her ancestors, but didn’t quite know how to go about it. She felt a bit confused and overwhelmed.

Erma tracked me down in the fall of 2006 and told me she needed some solid genealogy advice.

I had already been successfully researching my family history for over 27 years and had turned that passion for genealogy into a professional career.

You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to find your ancestors

I told Erma that curiosity was all she needed to get started. She had buckets of that! “You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to find your ancestors”, I informed her.

Search over 1 Million names!

Why all this fuss over dead ancestors?

Erma’s husband George couldn’t quite understand all this fuss over dead ancestors.

The genealogy bug bit him about a year latter when his wife discovered that George’s great-grandfather had won a medal fending off the Fenians.

“Wow!”, he exclaimed, “I didn’t even know he was in the military”.

You need to write all of this genealogy advice down

Erma was a close friend of my grandmother and I really didn’t mind offering her free genealogy advice. It was a joy just to see how excited she got with each new discovery.

One day over a cup of coffee at her farmhouse she told me, “Allen, you have to write this genealogy advice down somewhere.”

Free genealogy advice – no strings attached!

Erma was right. I needed to share my knowledge and passion for genealogy with others. Voila! My website free-genealogy-advice.com is born!

My goal is to offer beginners a step-by-step guide to tracing their family tree. Like my grandmother's friend Erma you'll learn (among other things) how to:

Share your stories!

The best way to learn how to "do" genealogy is by reading the stories of other researcher's. Tell me how you set about finding a particular ancestor. Click here to submit your story. Share your story! You never know, it may appear on this website soon!

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